Bib #0131 Rotorua Half IM, 15.12.2012 - 'Steff Kidd'

Up until a few weeks back, my whole focus this year was to slowly and gradually reach the stage where I could comfortably do sprint distance triathlon's by the end of it.  I was hoping to enter a few of the Contact Tri series races and be happy with the results and the gains I had made in my training. Next year was going to be the hard slog towards IM 2014, with a half IM or 2 thrown in at the end of 2013 just for good measure?? Wasnt too sure how it was going to pan out really but knew it would all just slot into place.
My husband Greg, sat me down one night last week and we chatted about my goals and aims for the next couple of years leading up to Ironman.  He understood the intent behind my thinking above but wanted to me listen to what he thought I should do also.  What came out of his mouth next kind of blew me away.  He said that he had been sent a link through for the Rotorua Half Ironman and then said I should do it. All of the usual tapes played in my head, there is no way I will be ready, I don't want to do a half IM that soon, I wont be strong enough, my body will fall apart.. blah blah blah.  Then thought - hey, hang on.  In 6 months I have gone from nothing, to being able to swim at least 1km in the lake (cold weather put a stop on the aquathons and thats where my training in the lake ended until later this year), clocking up 2 km plus in the pool on each training session, biking around the lake (45ish km) biking up Mt Ngongotaha (7km of straight uphill hard slog), and running 8-10km comfortably on the road or in the forest.  In another 6 months with a gradual increase in training surely I could be up to those distances... surely???
What's more is that Greg believed that I could do it.  But did I??
As fate would have it, I attended an award presentation evening through my work and they had a guest speaker who was incredibly motivating and inspirational in the area of taking an idea and running with it until success.  She played a small clip to us with a whole heap of phrases surrounding the area of setting and achieving your goals.  This was on Tuesday night - the entries opened for the Rotorua Half IM the very next day!  My mind was made up and so I sent a txt message to a friend and told her I must be mad for even considering it.  She replied "If by MAD you mean Motivated And Driven, then I guess you are!!
So there we are. Bib #0131 'Steff Kidd' will be on the start line of the 2012 Rotorua Half Ironman.